Books
I cannot think of any five words that invoke more terror within me than 'the book of the film'. Perhaps 'An Audience with Jeremy Beadle', but it's a close run thing. Many very good books have been made into very good films. Very many fewer good films have been made into good books. The stilted narrative, the painfully logical scene-by-scene progression, the 'and then he said to her' dialogue that arises from converting a linear visual event into words makes book adaptations of films almost universally appalling. I recently found the book version of Home Alone 2 on a dusty shelf in the corner of a second-hand bookstore, and was so astonished - firstly by the fact that anyone would ever bother to transcribe a film that relied infinitely more on visual slapstick than witty dialogue (sorry Macaulay), and secondly by the fact than anyone had ever bought it - that I actually bought it myself. Maybe it was a clever marketing trick.
Anyhow. I know what you're going to say. Jennifer Government isn't 'the book of the film', is it? Not at all - it's the original satiric brainchild of young Australian writer Max Barry. The book's premise is a fascinating one: a sly inversion of Orwellian dystopia, where multinationals and free-market capitalizm (yes, with a z) rule all. Taxes have been abolished, withering government's power - "They just stop people stealing or hurting each other and everything else is taken care of by the private sector, which everyone knows is more efficient", as one indoctrinated schoolgirl explains. Citizens take the surname of the organisation they work for - Hack Nike is an undervalued Nike employee whilst the eponymous Jennifer Government is one of the few state-employed agents left. These two, plus some five other central characters, flit around the world from Los Angeles to London to Melbourne as the ruthless forces of the multinationals do battle with an ever-diminishing cast of non-corporatists. And it all gets wrapped up in a big happy ending, as morality and love conquers unethical profiteering. Brilliant.
So why the film-book polemic earlier? Because whilst this isn't a book of a film, it might as well be. Jennifer Government's prose makes Home Alone 2 look like Tolstoy. For all his original ideas, Barry has the writing style of a 13-year-old boy on a caffeine high. Character development is sacrificed to make room for the next unnecessary and carnage-filled shootout, whilst plot location seems to jump from one landmark to the next with no good explanation. The dialogue, whilst occasionally amusing, appears to have been transplanted from a 70s cop show, and the saccharine, convoluted ending would have even the most ardent James Bond fans writhing in their armchairs. I'm not a linguistic purist - I don't demand that every description is furnished with at least three emotive metaphors, and I'm quite happy for action and dialogue to trot along in a brisk and direct manner - but the net result of such trigger-happy prose is an excision of empathy for the central characters, and an obfuscation of the satiric premise of the entire story.
Unsurprisingly, Jennifer Government has already been snapped up by a major Hollywood director, presumably with the aim of turning it into the action adventure of the year. Hmm, anti-corporate novel becomes Hollywood moneyspinner? Now that's the sort of satire you just couldn't write...
29th Jan 2004